


Romantic Getaway Reloaded

by BalthTheChaoticGood



Series: Public History prompts [2]
Category: Public History (webseries)
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Lesbians, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:53:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BalthTheChaoticGood/pseuds/BalthTheChaoticGood
Summary: After graduation, David goes to visit the Pegg's place in Yarmouth again, this time taking Tommy with him. Little does he know that his best friend's taste in girls is just as bad as his own - but while Tommy is convinced that this will end just as badly for her as it did for David, David actually thinks that Tommy might have a chance...
Relationships: David Copperfield/Jason Steerforth (one-sided), David Copperfield/OFC, Emily Khalil/Tommy Traddles
Series: Public History prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620886
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, another prompt: [Zoë](https://bisexualwentworth.tumblr.com/) requested "1: Are you going to say it or not?" from [this prompt list](https://spookyold-saintjm.tumblr.com/post/189967251825). She said I could write it for "any gay pairing I want", so I took that literally and came up with this pairing that?? doesn't really make sense? Well, I made it make sense, and I hope y'all will follow me down these twisting paths and find out how Emily is absolutely a lesbian and Tommy 100% deserves a girlfriend.
> 
> Also, fyi: I started writing this before all of this disaster, so this is an AU in which no one's mum dies and no one gets beaten and abused - basically, they're just soppy teens in love and friendship.
> 
> PS: this is not beta'd because i couldn't wait and also i'm pretty sure this is too niche even for my beta.

“Well?” Tommy asks, storming into the room David currently lives in, “are you gonna say it or not?”

David is confused. Up until this point, he thought that him and Tommy were having a nice vacation at the Pegg’s house in Yarmouth, a well-deserved break before college starts. But for some reason, Tommy looks furious. David isn’t exactly sure what’s going on.

“Uh,” he says eloquently.

Tommy throws herself onto David’s bed face first. She screams an unruly amount of swear words into a pillow before sitting up, blowing a strand of hair out of her face and giving him a grim look. “Go on, say it.”

David really doesn’t know what this is all about. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Fuck.” Tommy sighs dramatically, closes her eyes and balls her hands into fists. “Tell me to stop crushing on the straight girl who already broke your heart once, before she can go on and break mine as well.”

This… is not what David expected.

David doesn’t know what to say. Tommy’s breathing is loud and ragged, and she looks so angry – he realizes slowly that most of this anger is probably directed at herself.

“You have feelings for Emily?” he asks carefully.

“No!” Tommy rectifies forcefully. “I don’t have _feelings_ , I have a stupid, childish crush! On a girl you like!” She sighs, burying her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry, David.”

David shrugs, even though she can’t see him. “Liked.”

“What?” Tommy lets her hands sink into her lap and gives him a confused look.

“Liked,” David repeats, “Emily is a girl I liked, a while back, and just for a bit.” Then he shrugs again. “Anyway, I’m over it, and she was never interested in me anyway, so…”

Tommy furrows her brows. “What are you saying?”

She looks so suspicious, it makes David laugh. “Just that I don’t mind, and I think Emily is a great girl, and I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

“UGH!” Tommy groans. “You’re not helping, David, you’re supposed to talk me out of it! Even if you don’t still like her, it’s weird! And she’s straight!”

“We don’t know that.” David tilts his head, scratching his chin. “She never said so, did she? All we know is that I’m apparently not her type. But you still could be.”

“UGH!” Tommy repeats and throws herself face first into David’s pillow again.

After a moment of consideration, David adds, “Also, she’s really obsessed with that one actress. Might be a sign that she’s into girls.”

Tommy lifts her head up just long enough to give David a death glare and to snarl, “You’re not helping! I hate you!” before burying her face in the pillow again.

So. This vacation just got a lot more interesting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily is bored, which is always a challenge for everyone else to entertain.

They’re at the beach the next day, all four of them. Cameron is sitting in a circle with David and Tommy and they’re eating pieces of water melon out of a bowl that Cameron brought along. Emily is lying next to them, on her back in her bikini, with her eyes closed.

Every so often, David catches Tommy when her eyes wander over to where Emily is lying. Every time, Tommy blushes slightly and then glares at him. David can’t help but smile.

“Hey Emily,” he says eventually. “Do you want some water melon?”

Emily opens her eyes and sits up. “Oh, sure.” She grabs her towel and joins their circle, making herself comfortable between David and Tommy.

David offers her the bowl, waits for her to take some water melon, then offers it to Tommy as well; Tommy is still giving him death glares.

“So,” Emily begins with a smile, wiping a bit of water melon juice from the corner of her mouth. “Have you guys decided what we’re gonna do tonight? And please don’t say Trivial Pursuit again, it’s so boring!”

“Trivial pursuit is a perfectly fine way to spend a Friday evening,” Cameron protests.

Emily rolls her eyes at her fondly. “Come on, Cam, let’s show our guests a little bit of fun! We could go to the movies or the arcade, or we could ask around if anyone from school is throwing a party tonight! I think Ayleen was mentioning something about that a few days ago. Let’s live a little, huh? What do you say?” The last question is directed at Tommy and David in particular, since it’s already pretty clear that Cameron isn’t as excited about going to a party as she is about board game night.

David smiles and nods. “Sure,” he says. “A party sounds fun!”

Him and Emily both look at Tommy expectantly. Tommy’s face is unreadable, her eyes wander back and forth between David and Emily. Eventually, she breathes out a sigh and says, “I don’t think I packed anything to wear for a party.”

Emily throws her head back and laughs with closed eyes. Then she says, “Oh, don’t worry, we can go shopping beforehand. There’s a couple of decent stores not far from here, we can walk there later.”

Tommy frowns. “I’m not sure…”

But Emily seems determined. “Oh, you’re totally gonna love this one store! It’s kinda vintage, they’ve got a lot of that grunge stuff you’ve got going. Trust me, I’m great at this kind of thing.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Cameron have a talk about Emily and Tommy, and about intentions and feelings, and about wanting to protect the ones they love.

This is how, half an hour later, David and Cameron are on their way home from the beach alone while Emily and Tommy are going shopping together.

“So,” Cameron says awkwardly.

“So,” David echoes for lack of something better to say. He falls into step next to Cameron, unsure if she wants to start an actual conversation or just avoid uncomfortable silences.

Cameron looks at him weirdly for a moment, then nods to herself as if she has decided something. “I think your friend likes Emily,” she says then, completely matter-of-factly.

“Uh,” says David. He’s pretty sure that Tommy would kill him if he talked about any of the things she has told him. She hasn’t said it, but stuff like that is definitely confidential information and absolutely not meant to be shared with Emily’s best friend.

Cameron doesn’t seem to mind David’s non-answer. She nods again, then continues, “She’s not to blame, really. It happens to almost everyone who gets to know Emily. Not me, she’s more like a sister to me, but I’ve seen it. A lot.” She stops suddenly, looking at David. “You don’t still like her, do you?”

David’s cheeks get hot and he can’t hold Cameron’s gaze. “No, I don’t,” he says as gracefully as he can.

“Good.” Cameron continues walking, giving David a little time to catch up with her before she adds, “It would have made things awkward. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that Tommy’s intentions are honest.”

David frowns. “ _Her_ intentions?” he asks doubtfully. So far, he has mostly been worried about Emily’s intentions. “Look, not to be rude or anything, but I’m more worried about Tommy here than about Emily.”

This makes Cameron frown as well. “Why?”

“Why?” David stares at her. He’s not sure how to say ‘Remember when Emily kissed me for plot reasons?’ in a nice way, so he decides to not say anything at all.

Cameron waits for his answer for a while, then finally seems to get why it isn’t coming. “Oh. You’re referring to the kissing incident.” She makes the words ‘kissing incident’ sound rather drastic.

“Yeah,” David huffs. They’ve reached the Pegg’s house finally and David sits down on a bench on the veranda.

Cameron sits down next to him and nods. “So you do still like her.”

“No!” David protests, maybe a little too vehemently. He hopes that doesn’t make him sound insincere. “I just don’t want something like that to happen to my best friend.”

Cameron considers this for a while. “Okay,” she finally says, “I get that. But it’s not like she does these things to, I don’t know, hurt people.”

“Then why does she do that?”

Cameron sighs. “I don’t know.” She dangles her legs off the bench and swings her feet back and forth for a bit. Then, finally, she says, “I think she just doesn’t know what she wants.”

Well, David thinks, that makes at least two of them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Emily and Tommy come home from their shopping trip, it isn't Tommy who comes to talk to David, very much to David's surprise. Instead, Emily pays David a visit and opens up about her feelings.

David spends the rest of the afternoon lying in his room next to the cooling fan, checking his phone every couple minutes for a cry of help from Tommy. It never comes.

Instead, he hears voices in the hallway a couple of hours later – one of the voices is clearly Tommy, so David sneaks over to his door, carefully opens it just wide enough to catch a glimpse of the hallway, and immediately has to cover his mouth with his hand so he won’t let out a happy little squeal.

Emily and Tommy are standing in the hallway, holding hands and talking quietly. It all seems very flirty: They’re leaning into each other, Emily is lowering her head a little to make up for the height difference, and when Emily seems to say something funny, Tommy lets out an actual giggle. David can’t believe his eyes. Tommy Traddles, giggling and blushing like a school girl with a crush. Well, David supposes, she has a crush and up until a few weeks ago, she was a school girl. It adds up. He still can’t get over it, it’s too adorable.

Across the hallway, Emily catches David’s eyes. David feels caught, but he can’t move away from the door, Emily’s eyes are keeping him there. To his surprise, she smiles at him before looking back to Tommy and saying something else that makes Tommy giggle even more. Only when Emily leans in to whisper something in Tommy’s ear, David manages to look away and quietly close the door behind him.

He sits down on the bed, staring at his phone and blanking out completely. Absentmindedly scrolling through his Instagram feed, he thinks about Tommy and Emily and what’s gonna happen between them. Since this whole thing started, he has asked himself a couple of times if maybe he is a bit jealous; but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that, no, this really is just about Tommy and how he’s worried she’ll get her heart broken just like him. Yes, Emily probably doesn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, David believes that. But Tommy is his best friend and he’s very protective, as it turns out.

There’s a knock on the door and David flinches. “Come in!” he says, pushing his thoughts away and pretending to be engrossed in his Insta feed. The door opens and to his surprise, it’s not Tommy.

“Can I come in?” Emily asks, leaning against the doorframe.

“Oh.” David notices that he’s staring with his mouth agape, so he closes it. “Yeah, sure, come in.”

Emily smiles and closes the door behind her, then she sits down on the bed, opposite David. She takes her time making herself comfortable and studying his face, but then she finally begins. “David, I –”

Just at the same time, David starts talking. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to –“

They both stop and look at each other, then Emily smiles again, softer this time, and says, “It’s okay.” She pushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear and looks at him for a long moment. Then she sighs and asks, “David, you don’t still like me, do you?”

David suppresses the urge to groan. Why does everyone keep thinking that? His crush with Emily was months ago, so much has happened since then. “No,” he says defensively. “No, I don’t still like you.” He also suppresses the urge to apologize for that, even though he wants to – it’s just absurd to apologize for dwindled feelings to a girl who never reciprocated them.

She nods solemly. “Good,” she says after a short pause. “Good.” Then, apparently unrelated to everything, she asks, “David, do you sometimes feel like a spectator in your own life?”

“Uh,” David says. He doesn’t know where the question comes from, isn’t sure if she’s more asking for herself than to hear his answer, but nevertheless, he tries to answer as truthfully as possible. “I think,” he begins slowly, “yeah, I think I feel like that now and then. You know, things keep on happening to me and I just have to deal with them. Makes me feel like I don’ really have a choice sometimes, you know.”

Emily nods. After a while, she replies, “I feel like that, too.”

It surprises David. To him, Emily has always seemed like someone who takes matters into her own hands. But, he supposes, he doesn’t really know her that well. Despite their time together on winter break, and despite the last couple of days, he feels like he barely scratched on the surface of getting to know her. The realization makes him determined to make her his friend – properly, this time.

“You do?” he asks carefully.

“Yeah.” Emily grabs a pillow and cradles it in her lap. “Like… sometimes, my life feels like a movie I’m watching, without getting a say in the script. Like that day in December, on the beach, you know? I was just thinking, this is the scene where the boy and the girl kiss. So I did. It didn’t feel like a choice.”

David watches her face carefully. Right now, she reminds him so much of the Emily he talked to on the beach that day – open, vulnerable, but somehow still unreadable. But then, she looks up at him and frowns.

“I’m still sorry about it, David. Do you believe me?” she asks.

And in this moment, he does, no matter what his doubts kept telling him up to this point. He can’t be angry at her anymore for kissing him, and he doesn’t want to be either. “Yeah, I believe you.”

“I’m glad.” She smiles at him. “You know,” she adds then, after a little moment of hesitation, “Cam texted me earlier. She told me that you’re worried I’m gonna hurt Tommy.”

David’s face flushes. Of course Cameron didn’t keep that to herself; he believes in her best intentions and knows she only did it to do everyone a favor – but if Tommy ever finds out about this, she is gonna kill David. For sure.

“But, you know,” Emily continues. “I don’t think you have to worry. I don’t know how to explain it, but things are different. With Tommy, I mean. I don’t know, she makes me feel… like I got choices.”

David swallows. “Do you like her?” He’s a little scared of the answer, but he has to ask anyway, for Tommy’s sake.

“I don’t know,” Emily says. Her hands are kneading the pillow in her lap nervously, but her voice is calm. “I don’t know if I’ve ever liked someone, you know, in that way. But I want to get to know her, to spend time with her and all that. And I hope she wants that, too.”

This honest confession makes David stare at Emily for a long moment. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s still not sure if he can read Emily’s face, but somehow he trusts her with this. It sounds too honest to be untrue.

“David?” Emily finally asks, “You won’t tell her, will you? I wanna talk to her myself.”

David nods. He still can’t say he has a good feeling about all of this, but at least he knows that if all of this fails terribly, it won’t be anyone’s fault. It might just mean that it’s not meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I just wanted to let you know: If you're reading this, I love you. I knew what the chances were of anyone reading this when I started to write fic for a completely made up pairing in a show with a tiny fandom. So, if you're reading this, just know that it matters a lot to me, and I hope you have a good day. <3


End file.
